A great viaduct runs across, with high piers, through which the view seems somehow further away than it really is.
Between the two piers there is a narrow opening into the harbour, which then suddenly widens.
Two very mild cheers went up from the dripping crowd on the
pier; we answered them gently from the slippery decks; the flag made an effort to wave, and failed; the "battery of guns" spake not--the ammunition was out.
Take between where I'm going to build my
pier and the old
pier.
A skiff, however, lay beside the
pier, with some seamen sleeping on the thwarts; this, as Ransome told me, was the brig's boat waiting for the captain; and about half a mile off, and all alone in the anchorage, he showed me the Covenant herself.
It was pleasant on the
pier. Once you had passed the initial zareba of fruit stands, souvenir stands, ice-cream stands, and the lair of the enthusiast whose aim in life it was to sell you picture post-cards, and had won through to the long walk where the seats were, you were practically alone with Nature.
"The matter is," replied D'Artagnan, "that I can see upon this
pier neither inspector nor sentinel nor exciseman."
"Weren't you a little shaky by Southend
Pier one day, and wanted to be thrown overboard?"
But if Langland did not rise high in the Church, he made himself famous in another way, for he wrote
Piers the Ploughman.
In its own age the influence of '
Piers the Plowman' was very great.
A fleet of steam-tugs lies at anchor in front of the various
piers. A conspicuous church spire, the first seen distinctly coming from the sea, has a thoughtful grace, the serenity of a fine form above the chaotic disorder of men's houses.
On a thousand bridges and
piers shall they throng to the future, and always shall there be more war and inequality among them: thus doth my great love make me speak!